Review: Confession of Murder

Just saw this movie today. I saw an ad about it a couple of weeks ago in the midst of Park Shi Hoo’s case. Even if you are not a fan of Korean drama/movies, you should definitely watch this one. It is more of a murder, mystery movie. It is one of the more different roles Park Shi Hoo has played. I haven’t seen a lot of his work but this is definitely different from Cheongdamdong Alice or Sungkyunkwan Scandal. This is not light-hearted at all and has dark themes. For those of you who want to watch this you might not want to read on because I there might be spoilers in this post right below the picture. So for a basic summary, the movie is about a man who confesses his crimes after the statute of limitations runs out. Park Shi Hoo plays the serial killer (Lee Doo-Suk) and Jung Jae-Young is the Lieutenant (Choi Hyung-Goo). Lee Doo-Suk writes the gory details of his crime in a book and publishes it. He instantly becomes famous and this is where the mystery begins…why did he do it?

So starting from here I’m going to tell you guys what happened in this movie. It starts in a restaurant/eatery. Then suddenly you see two guys crash through one of the windows. One of them is the killer and one of them is Choi Hyung-Goo. The killer grabs a hold of the woman who works at the place and he slits her throat saying, “Her life is on your hands now.” He drops the woman and escapes. Hyung-Goo chases after him and tries to catch him but can’t. He does manage to shoot him in the shoulder. The killer gets the upper hand and cuts Hyung-Goo across his left cheek. Years later, the killer writes a book and gets it published. He goes by the name of Lee Doo-Suk now. He instantly becomes famous. A few of the victims are still angry about what happened and want to do something about it, namely one of the victim’s (Hyung-Goo’s late wife) mother (Han Ji-Soo). The son (Jung Hyun-Sik) of one of the first victims commits suicide the day the statute of limitations ran out. Hyun-Sik’s mother was one of the victims and Hyung-Goo took him in as his own son. The victims who want revenge, however, kidnap Doo-Suk to find out where Han Ji-Soo’s body is buried. Her body was never found during the investigations. She was known as the missing girl. Hyun-Goo goes to Doo-Suk’s rescue and gets him out. Because of the book, reporters wanted a debate/discussion on national tv. Hyun-Goo and Doo-Suk attend the show. During the show, a caller named Jay admits that he is the killer. Now everyone is confused and questioning the credibility of Doo-Suk. The television producers now want this character Jay on tv. A girl who had been affected by the killings had not heard what was being said on tv and she plans on killing Doo-Suk because nothing is being done. She goes to the tv station and shoots him with an arrow, injuring him. She is caught but Doo-Suk does not press charges.

Jay threatens Hyun-Goo and goes to his house and leaves a note saying that he would harm his mother if he is pissed off. His mother is alright and Jay is just messing with him. Now that this Jay character has surfaced, he keeps screwing with Hyun-Goo. He even calls him on his cellphone. The people working at the tv station finally get in contact with Jay. He agrees to appear on their show and hands over a cassette tape. It contained the last words of Hyun-Goo’s wife, the missing girl who was never found. At first he watches it and reminisces of how she was when she was alive. Then he listens to it more to see if he could get any clues from the tape. On the day when all three of them, Hyun-Good, Doo-Suk and Jay, meet, the truth is finally revealed. Doo-Suk confesses that he is not the real serial killer. He is asked how he knew all the details of the deaths of all 10 girls. Then Hyun-Goo says that he was the one who wrote the book. Doo-Suk then says his mother was the first victim of the murders. Doo-Suk is actually Hyun-Sik. He had tried to commit suicide in the beginning but he survived. His face was too badly mangled that they had to perform plastic surgery on his face. This is why he could not be recognized by anyone. Hyun-Goo had planned this out since the beginning to draw out Jay. He knew that Jay loved the attention and the limelight. So having someone claim the credit of the murders was the only way to weed him out. Hyun-Goo takes out his gun and plans on killing Jay. His colleague tries to stop him by pushing his arm away as he pulls the trigger. The lights get killed and it’s pitch black in the station. Jay gets away and a chase ensues.

Jay is finally caught. Hyun-Goo and Jay get into a fist fight. Hyun-Goo attempts to strangle Jay as the police arrives just in time to arrest him. Hyun-Sik gets on the scene and he tries to kill Jay with some broken glass. He is stopped by the cops. Ji-Soo then tries to kill Jay with a pen filled with poison. Hyun-Goo takes away the pen and it appears as though Jay won’t die. However, as Jay looks down, he sees that he has been stabbed with the pen. Hyun-Goo goes away to prison for 5 years. There is also a flashback of Hyun-Goo’s last days with his wife before she died. Hyun-Goo then comes out of prison and there is the last scene with the victim’s families smiling.